Friday, April 19, 2019

This book is ONLY for readers who have already read the first five books. The series unfolds over six months, one book per month, each culminating in the full moon. Along the way they delve into multiple timelines in the past. Please don't try to start at the end!

The
series turns tropes of violence against women inside out: this haunted FBI
agent and his team is on the hunt for a female serial killer. Who kills men. Lots of them. All
over the country. For years.

If you love a fictional series based on real life horrors, like The Handmaid's Tale or Mindhunter, or if you're just in the mood to see the predators LOSE, read on.

Special
Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.

Bob is also the multi-award-winning narrator of the blockbuster
audiobook of The Martian, and you can
hear his stellar narration in all six Huntress books. (Shadow Moon audiobook out in May, with Bob producing, AND with alternate male/female narration, co-performing with Rinelle Harkin!)

Mass
killer Cara Lindstrom is in the wind, after a deadly encounter which
has left FBI Special Agent Antara Singh questioning her own sanity
and fitness to serve. ASAC Matthew Roarke exiles Singh to Portland to
work as
an assistant to his old mentor, retiring profiler Chuck Snyder—but a
series of
mysterious break-ins alerts Singh and Snyder to an active threat
revolving
around an old case: a string of brutal murders of homeless teenagers on
the
streets of Portland and Seattle.

Singh and Snyder must go on the road and deep into Roarke’s
and Cara’s pasts to discover a pattern of destiny and interconnection that
holds the key to unsolved child murders, past and present.

If you thought Bitter Moon was complex (I did!) Shadow Moon
takes it a couple of notches higher, which may be why I'm a little late
on it. :) The book takes place over multiple timelines,
encompassing
many episodes from Roarke's and Cara's lives within the framework of a
heartbreaking, excruciating, present-day case.

You'll be going on a road trip that includes stops at some of my - I mean Cara's - favorite national parks.

You'll
learn things you never knew about all the characters—details and
backstories that I've been incorporating into the TV episodes.

On
the procedural side, as always, I'm writing about real-life failures in
the criminal justice system that could so very easily be fixed with
obvious and implementable real-life solutions- IF this country decided
to make the elimination of sexual violence and sexual homicide a
priority.

And I hope the story will also inspire you to
think about the role of destiny and synchronicity in your own life. For
me, that's part of the mysterious magic of this world - the signs and
convergences that let me know I'm on my path.

As always,
I'm looking forward to talking to you about any and all of the books in
the series, your synchronicities, your fears, your triumphs, your love
lives...

a love story/horror
thriller set in the world’s creepiest hospital (some fascinating research went
into that!)

A
Boston district attorney suspects his wife has made a terrible bargain to save
the life of their dying child.

Read by Noah Michael Levine

“The Price is a gripping read full of
questions about good, evil, and human nature…the devastating conclusion leaves
the reader with an uncomfortable question to consider: ‘If everyone has a
price, what’s yours?’”

—Rue Morgue magazine

“A heartbreakingly eerie page turner.” —Library Journal

UPCOMING
APPEARANCES:In the US:

April 14 (yes, tomorrow!) I’ll be at the LA Times Festival of Books, signing
at the Mysterious Galaxy/Sisters in Crime booths from 1-2 pm.Booths 367/368

May 15-19 I’m thrilled to be going back to New Orleans for the inaugural
Book Lovers Con (formerly Romantic Times). Two
hundred romance, thriller and suspense authors descend on my favorite city during Jazzfest.
You know you want to be there!

In the UK:

May 2-4 I’ll be at Newcastle Noir, with a whole
cadre of powerhouse feminist authors from all over the world! Can’t wait!

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Before I talk about the new book below, with spoilers - I want to remind everyone that this series is written to be read in order. So Thomas & Mercer has put the first
five books of the series on sale for you to catch up - just 99c each
on Amazon US.

(Huntress Moon may be $1.99 for some people.)

The
series turns tropes of violence against women inside out: this haunted FBI
agent and his team is on the hunt for a female serial killer. Who kills men. Lots of them. All
over the country. For years.

So if you love a fictional series based on real life horrors, like The Handmaid's Tale or Mindhunter, or if you're just in the mood to see the predators LOSE, here’s your chance to get a
great deal.

Special
Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.

Mass killer Cara Lindstrom is in the wind, after a deadly encounter which has left FBI Special Agent Antara Singh questioning her own sanity
and fitness to serve. ASAC Matthew Roarke exiles Singh to Portland to work as
an assistant to his old mentor, retiring profiler Chuck Snyder—but a series of
mysterious break-ins alerts Singh and Snyder to an active threat revolving
around an old case: a string of brutal murders of homeless teenagers on the
streets of Portland and Seattle.

Singh and Snyder must go on the road and deep into Roarke’s
and Cara’s pasts to discover a pattern of destiny and interconnection that
holds the key to unsolved child murders, past and present.

If you thought Bitter Moon was complex (I did!) Shadow Moon takes it a couple of notches higher, which may be why I'm a little late on it. :) The book takes place over multiple timelines,
encompassing many episodes from Roarke's and Cara's lives within the framework of a heartbreaking, excruciating, present-day case.

You'll learn things you never knew about all the characters—details and backstories that I've been incorporating into the TV episodes.

On the procedural side, as always, I'm writing about real-life failures in the criminal justice system that could so very easily be fixed with obvious and implementable real-life solutions- IF this country decided to make the elimination of sexual violence and sexual homicide a priority.

And I hope the story will also inspire you to think about the role of destiny and synchronicity in your own life. For me, that's part of the mysterious magic of this world - the signs and convergences that me know I'm on my path.

As always, I'm looking forward to talking to you about any and all of the books in the series, your synchronicities, your fears, your triumphs, your love lives...

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a
romantic but thematically useful post for the day.

As many of you know by now, the first assignment I lay out in my Screenwriting Tricks workbooks, and the first exercise I have any class or workshop I teach do right up front, is a Top Ten List of favorite movies.

Because, yes, I teach story structure, but what works for me structurally is not necessarily going to do it for you. My primary goal is to teach you how to do this for yourself.

If
you take the time to list, study and analyze the books and films that
have had the greatest impact on you personally, or that are structurally
similar to the story you’re writing, or both, that’s when you really
start to master your craft. Making the lists and analyzing those stories
will help you brainstorm your own, unique versions of scenes and
meta-structures that work in the stories on your master list; it will
help you figure out how your particular story will work. And doing this
analysis will embed story structure in your head so that constructing a
story becomes a fun and natural process for you.

Making
a genre list is particularly useful for brainstorming and analyzing the
elements of a genre or sub genre that your reader or audience will be
expecting in any book or film of that genre.

So in honor of the day, I'm going to do a favorite love story list.

• Four Weddings and a Funeral• Lost in Translation

• Next Stop Wonderland

• Notorious

• Bridget Jones’ Diary (the book more than the movie)

• Notting Hill

• When Harry Met Sally

• Philadelphia Story

• Rebecca

• Bringing Up Baby

• Much Ado About Nothing

• Casablanca

• Sleepless in Seattle

(That’s a list of more than ten, just to demonstrate that the list is whatever you want it to be!)

So what can I learn about my own love story themes by looking at that list?

Four Weddings and a Funeral, Philadelphia Story, Sleepless in Seattle, and Lost in Translation are probably my favorites of that list.

Four Weddings appeals
to me on a very personal level because writer Richard Curtis, as is his
wont, is not just exploring love relationships between two people, or
several sets of two people, but also the group love dynamic of a posse
of friends. In fact, in that movie, the group dynamic is one of the
factors keeping the hero, Charlie (Hugh Grant) from settling down to
marry — and has kept every single one of the others single, except for
the one truly married couple in the group, the gay couple who couldn't at the time legally marry. (Wonderful, scathing truth there, every bit as important today).

That
group dynamic has always resonated deeply with me, and I imagine it
struck a chord for a lot of people. Also, in terms of high concept, the
film is great because most of us have experienced that totally
exhausting year that every single person you know gets married and your
entire social calendar revolves around weddings. I certainly could
relate to Hugh Grant groaning and burying his head under a pillow as yet
another embossed linen envelope arrived in the mail.

But the real beauty of Four Weddings is
the underlying theme that there is something magical about a wedding
that opens the door to love, not just for the couple involved, but
potentially for everyone who attends. The structure of the film is a
round-robin, where at each wedding at least two people find the loves of
their lives, and we see one of those weddings next, or the preparation
for a wedding, or at least the deepening of the relationship with a
promise of marriage. This is something I think most of us would like to
believe about weddings: that there is an encompassing magic there, a kairos, that invites something life-changing. That story truly delivered on that theme.

When Harry Met Sally is
an enduring romantic comedy not just because of the great chemistry
between Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan and the charming documentary clips of
elderly couples talking about how they met and fell in love, but
because it explores a strong theme: Can a man and woman ever really be
friends? And we experience the great treat of watching Billy and Meg
first becoming friends and then falling in love.

Next Stop Wonderland and Sleepless in Seattle are
examples of the theme of the soul mate — that there is someone out
there who is destined for you, and that the Universe will guide you to
that person. Next Stop Wonderland shows two people whose paths
cross over and over again, with all kinds of attendant signs that these
two people are supposed to be together — but they don’t meet until the
last few seconds of the movie. Sleepless in Seattle explores the
same kind of fatedness, and similarly keeps the hero and heroine apart
until the end of the movie. I admit, this kind of thing just turns me
inside out: that there is one person who is all
that, and that all of life is conspiring to help you find that person.

Lost in Translation is
a bittersweet variation on the soul mate theme: Bill Murray and
Scarlett Johansson are two married people (married to other people!) in
spiritual crisis who meet each other in a posh hotel in Japan. They are
drawn to each other despite their marriages and the big age difference
between them, and we feel a simultaneous HOPE and FEAR that they will
get together. We want it at the same time we sense it’s wrong. But the
story is really about — to me — the concept that we may have lived
multiple past lives, with multiple lovers, and sometimes in the midst of
a crisis, one of those soul mates will show up to guide you through the
dark woods … but not necessarily stay with you. In the Final Battle
(the film’s climax), Bill does not sleep with Scarlett, and they part
ways, but their lives have been transformed by each other nonetheless.

Notting Hill is
an interesting story because there’s no one person who’s the antagonist
(even though Alec Baldwin does a charming turn as the rival, the movie
star boyfriend). The real obstacle to Hugh Grant’s and Julia Roberts’
relationship is her fame, and each sequence explores a different aspect
of that celebrity and how it keeps the couple apart.

Philadelphia Story has
a very sophisticated underlying premise: Cary Grant knows that
Katharine Hepburn will never be able to love him fully until she steps
off her pedestal and has a roll in the mud. It’s only after she abandons
herself and sleeps with Jimmy Stewart (oh, come on, you know they
did!), that she is fully human to love Cary.

Try it with your own list!

Every
time I teach a story structure class it’s always fascinating for me to
hear people’s lists, one after another, because it gives me such an
insight into the particular uniqueness of the stories each of those
writers is working toward telling. The list tells you who you are as a
writer. What you are really listing are your secret thematic
preferences. You can learn volumes from these lists if you are willing
to go deep.

I
really urge you to create your list, and break those stories down to
see why they have such an impact on you — because that's the kind of
impact that you want to have on your readers. Why not learn fron your
favorite storytellers how to do it?

So of course, what I want today is love stories! What are yours? What romantic themes particularly resonate with you?

STEALING HOLLYWOODThis workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding sixmore full story breakdowns.

Monday, February 04, 2019

Anyone in the mood for some female vigilante justice?Book 6 of my Thriller Award-nominated Huntress Moon
series releases in March, and Thomas & Mercer has put the first five books of the series on sale, so you can catch up - just 99c each on Amazon US. (Huntress Moon may be $1.99 for some people.

The
series turns tropes of violence against women inside out: my haunted FBI
agent is on the hunt for a female serial killer. Who kills men. All
over the country. For years.

So if you're in the mood to see the predators LOSE, here’s your chance to get a
great deal.

Special
Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.

Bob is also the multi-award-winning narrator of the blockbuster
audiobook of The Martian, and you can
hear his stellar narration in all five Huntress books.

I wrote the Huntress Moonseries because I am sick to death of women and children being raped,
tortured, mutilated, and murdered for entertainment in novels, movies, TV shows...

And oh yeah - real life.

The Huntress series turns the
tables. The books follow a haunted FBI agent on the hunt for a female serial
killer who kills men. A lot of them.

The
fact is, one reason novels and film and TV so often depict women as victims is
that it’s the stark reality. Since the beginning of time, women haven’t been
the predators — we’re the prey. But after all those millennia of women being
victims of the most heinous crimes out there wouldn’t you think that someone would
finally say: “Enough”? And maybe even strike back?Well, that’s a story,
isn’t it? And it’s a story that needs to be told now, more than ever, given this
political nightmare we’re living. The premise is a way to explore the third
rail of crime: the inherent, entrenched, misogyny of the system. And this series is a way for me to explore SOLUTIONS. I am not writing fantasies about clever serial
killers. I’m writing from real-life psychology and pathology, using real-life
examples and profiling, to counter some of the absolutely ridiculous and false
portrayals of this pathology that we see in film and television and books.Serial
killers are NOT criminal masterminds. They do NOT have artistic or poetic
bents. They are serial rapists who have graduated to murder. It’s a facet of the
male pattern violence that we are seeing revealed in the #MeToo stories and
lists from millions of women and teenagers in the past few weeks. Mass shooters
– that’s also male pattern violence, with domestic abuse being a key indicator
of the type of man who commits this particular atrocity.You
read the #MeToo stories - much less LIVE them! - and the totality of it seems overwhelming. The fact that
we have a serial sexual predator and blatant misogynist (and racist, white
supremacist, xenophobe, looter, plutocrat…) in the most powerful office in the
world, determining national and international policy, appointing judges,
reversing laws that protect women and children – all that is part of the
totality and even more overwhelming.However,
there ARE solutions. There are practical and actually very obvious ways
to CHANGE
this horrific culture of rape and predation. I've spent years now,
researching and interviewing experts about real psychology, real
systemic failures, and real solutions. I've written ALL of that into the
Huntress series, enacted by characters who reader really care about.One
of the keys to understanding male violence is that it is NOT universal. It is a
percentage of repeat offenders who commit these crimes (whether identified or
not) over and over and over again. We need to be very clear on this point. The
problem is not all men. The problem is a
percentage of repeat offenders.To
underscore this point, in the Huntress series, my FBI investigators are mostly
men, gay and straight, different races - with one key woman on the team and
lots of female leads from various social and legal and religious services. I wanted
to depict the kind of men I know, that I have always known, that I personally have
always been easily able to identify and not randomly lump in with criminals. I
wanted to depict their struggle with the overwhelming force of entrenched rape
culture, and their difficult fight to work within the system to change it. I
wanted the situation of their hunt for this unusual, very female killer to
force them to grapple with extremely real life, practical, workable solutions
to changing the system.I
cover different facets of different legal and societal systems in each of the
books. And in book 5, Hunger Moon, Special Agent Roarke and his team are working
toward a very explicit, law-enforcement based, multi-pronged approach to
identifying and convicting serial sexual
predators.If
we all, male and female, binary and non-binary, LGBTQ, people of every race and
variation thereof, could come to understand that we need to deal with this
segment of repeat offenders, we COULD change this. We could.It
isn't overwhelming, when we take a breath and break it down. And commit to
doing better for everyone. Women, men - and especially, especially children.

But
we need to know the facts. We need to know where the systemic failures have
been. And we need to keep speaking out against EVERY predator. Always.

Groundhog Day is
one of my favorite film love stories, with a rare protagonist: an
unlikable one who goes through a major character arc because of the
crucible of love (and with a little help from the weather gods). Along
with being a time loop story, an alternate reality story, and a
high-concept comedy, it’s a great example of a male redemption story
which also manages to hit all the right love story beats while at the
same time completely satirizing those love story beats. It’s an
anti-chick-flick story which nonetheless charms the chicks. In fact, I’m
pretty certain that Ramis or Rubin, or both, made themselves a list of
romantic comedy tropes and set out to mock every one of them, starting
with the concept of the MAGICAL DAY — in this case, the least likely
magical day you can imagine. Who ever would associate Groundhog Day with
love? (But note that it is the closest holiday to Valentine's Day....)

ACT ONE

SEQUENCE ONE

OPENING
IMAGE: This is one of my favorite, sly opening images of all time. It’s
a shot of very fast moving clouds in a blue sky, with some sort of
carnival music underneath. Now, this is a natural image for the story,
which is about a weatherman. But I think there’s a lot more going on
with this image. Those are very active clouds. I would even say
they’re scheming. Yes, I’m from Berkeley and this may be some
overanthropomorphizing on my part (or possibly some sort of flashback) —
but I honestly think I’m on to something here. I think the filmmakers
are deliberately making the weather an antagonist — and mentor — for the
protagonist, who has some pretty severe need of character change. Call
it weather, call it the weather gods, call it fate — but think about it.
There’s no obvious human antagonist in this story. Instead, there is
some kind of supernatural force working here to effect the change in
surly protagonist Phil Connors.

And the shot to me also recalls the opening image of It’s a Wonderful Life,
to which this film obviously owes much. In IAWL, the opening scene
consists of snow falling heavily on small town Bedford Falls, with
voice-over prayers for someone named George Bailey, which drift
gradually upward until we fix on clusters of stars in a night sky. Two
of the constellations start to talk about how this is George’s critical
night — and we understand there is going to be some heavenly
intercession in whatever this George Bailey’s crisis is.

And intercession is exactly what happens with Phil in Groundhog Day, in a more subtle but very effective way.

CUT
TO: A news studio, with weatherman Phil Connors doing his shtick in
front of a blue screen (basically waving his arms around, a nice visual
depiction of the meaninglessness of his job). However, despite his
sarcasm and his obvious disdain for what he does — and disdain for his
coworkers, too — Phil has star quality (it’s Bill Murray, after all) and
he is more than providing the show that the job calls for.

HERO’S
OUTER DESIRE: Phil wants out of Pittsburg and onto a major network. One
of his first off-camera lines of dialogue is that a major network is
interested in him. Yes, have the hero STATE WHAT HE WANTS.

We
learn right away that Phil is en route to one of his most despised
shoots — up to tiny Punxsutawney to report on the annual Groundhog Day
festival (the INCITING INCIDENT — he’s sent off on a job). Going with
him are long-suffering cameraman Larry and wholesome, optimistic
producer Rita, whom we see first on camera, trying to figure out how the
blue screen works. There’s a long close up on Phil’s face as he watches
her — it looks like he thinks this woman is a moron. At least, that’s
what we would expect him to be thinking. Actually, this is his real CALL
TO ADVENTURE (so often in a love story the CALL is seeing the beloved
for the first time). And much later in the story Phil confesses to a
sleeping Rita what he was actually thinking when he looked at her — it’s
a wonderful PLANT.

So
they’re off on the road; under the credits we see shots of the big city
(relatively), Pittsburgh, then the van drives over a bridge and into
snow-dusted mountains with small towns. (The song: “I’m Your
Weatherman)." This is the first, more overt INTO THE SPECIAL WORLD
moment. Remember that bridges are overt symbols of transition and
change. Out
of the city, into a small mountain town. This kind of contrast
underscores the feeling of newness and adventure we want to experience
in an Into The Special World transition. But a second, more magical INTO
THE SPECIAL WORLD is coming...

In
the van, Phil mocks both the festival and impossibly upbeat Rita
mercilessly, but still does it with enough Bill Murray charm that we see
Rita is amused, and attracted. (Right off the bat we get the DANCE
scene — they play well together and Rita is unflapped by Phil’s volleys;
she’s able to keep his humor from descending into outright meanness.
But meanness is definitely a danger; Phil desperately needs redeeming.)

The
crew arrives on Main Street, Punxsutawney, which if you ask me looks
exactly like Bedford Falls. Rita has booked Phil into a nice B&B
while she and Larry are staying in a cheap hotel. She tells him to “Get
some sleep.”

Lights
out, and then up on the clock alarm by Phil’s bed (this clock will play
a huge role) — clicking over to 6 a.m. for the first time in the film
as “I Got You, Babe,” plays. (I have to think this is the Fates having a
laugh; they certainly have “got” Phil. But of course, it’s also a love
song … ) The whole following sequence — every comic bit, line of
dialogue, action and character in it — is the master sequence for all
the variations on it that are to come.

• Phil washes up at the sink to the obnoxious patter of the radio jockeys talking about Groundhog Day.

• Phil is scathing to a cheery overweight guest in the upstairs hall.

• Downstairs, Phil mocks the even more cheery proprietress of the B&B.

• Phil pretends he has no money for the elderly panhandler on a street corner.

• Ned Ryerson, a high school non-friend of Phil’s, recognizes him and tries to sell him life insurance.

• Phil steps in an icy pothole while trying to escape from Ned.

•
Phil walks through the throngs of Groundhog Day festival-goers at the
Knob (as the band plays “The Pennsylvania Polka”) to join Rita and
Larry. Phil does the TV commentary on the groundhog festival: groundhog
“Phil” is removed from his cave, consults with town fathers, and sees
his shadow. Six more weeks of winter (FORESHADOWING).

• Phil insists on leaving town immediately.

•
On the road, the crew hits a roadblock — cars are being turned back
because of a big blizzard. (HERO LOCKED INTO THE SITUATION.)

(This
is a trope in romantic comedy — the Fates seem to intervene in the form
of the weather, forcing the hero or heroine onto a path s/he hadn’t
planned for, as we see in New in Town and Leap Year. Groundhog Day takes
this and many other romantic comedy clichés and mocks them at the same
time as it gets all the mileage it can out of the romance of the
situations — which is a big reason the story appealed equally to male
and female audiences. Note that the same slightly surreal music from the
opening shot is playing under this scene — it’s the Fates stepping in,
I’m telling you! I’d also call this the ANTAGONIST’S PLAN. It’s just
delicious that the weather has turned into Phil’s opponent. And Phil
knows it, as he rails at the roadblock cop: “I make the weather.” (Uh,
oh — if I’m not mistaken, this is DEFYING THE GODS. It’s never good when
mortals do that …)

• Back in the B&;B, Phil can’t find transportation or even a phone line out of town.

• In his room he tries to shower and is assaulted by icy water; the pipes are frozen.

• He goes to bed. (18:30)

SEQUENCE TWO

And
in the morning, Phil wakes up — to the exact same clock shot, the exact
same song, the exact same radio patter. Phil assumes the repetition is a
studio gaffe: they’ve put in yesterday’s tape by mistake. (A great
rational response to a bizarre situation.) But when he looks out the
window there’s very little snow on the ground, and people seem to be
headed toward Gobbler’s Knob in droves, just as they did yesterday.

And
here’s the second, more subtle, but real CROSSING THE THRESHOLD/INTO
THE SPECIAL WORLD: when Phil wakes up in the morning to a replaying of
the day he just spent. The filmmakers cue this moment with the shot of
the clock alarm clicking over to 6 a.m., while “I Got You, Babe” plays
on the radio. It’s a big visual that will repeat and repeat and repeat.
The numbers on the clock are like a door, and they usher Phil into the
real Special World: a time loop where every day is Groundhog Day and
there’s no escaping Punxsutawney, PA.

Out
in the hallway he runs into the same portly guest, who asks him the
same cheery questions. Phil starts to get uneasy then attacks the guest,
demanding to know what’s going on.

In the breakfast room, a dazed Phil is nicer to the proprietress just from shock.

He
is increasingly distressed as he goes to Gobbler’s Knob (meeting Ned
again, stepping in the icy pothole) and finds the festivities occurring
in the same order. His newscast is considerably less sarcastic, and Rita
wonders.

By
now sure that the blizzard is coming and he’s trapped, Phil doesn’t
leave in the van with Larry and Rita. At the B&B he again phones
a travel agent and tries to get out of town some other way; when the
travel agent suggests he try again tomorrow, Phil rails, “What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t today.” A nice bit of comic dialogue that also clearly states Phil’s FEAR. (SPELL IT OUT.)

Before he goes to sleep he breaks a pencil and sets it on the bed table. (TESTING THE RULES.) (25:44)

Phil wakes for the third time to the same song, the same radio banter. The pencil is intact, reconstituted.

Phil
speeds through the same sequence of events, then at Gobbler’s Knob
tells Rita he’s not going to do the show; he’s already done it twice
already, and something is terribly wrong. Rita insists he do the show,
they’ll talk after. (27:30)

At the diner, Phil tells Rita “I’m reliving the day over and over. I need help.”

Rita
thinks he needs a doctor. (So this is the minor, initial PLAN.) Note
the stopped clocks on the wall behind Phil, and the bumper sticker that
says “The Spirit” behind Rita. In fact, the Tip Top café logo outside on
the building is a clock — with no hands.

Rita
and Larry take Phil to a doctor. The CAT scan is clean; the doctor
suggests a shrink. Phil visits a very young psychologist who has no idea
what to do with his problem but suggests they meet again tomorrow.

Phil
gets drunk in a bowling alley with two locals. He asks them: “What if
you woke up in the same place every day and every day was just the same
and there was nothing you could do about it?” The men seem to feel
that’s life, in a nutshell. (THEME.) As they leave the bar, the two men
are way too drunk to drive, so Phil gets into the driver’s seat of the
car and then suddenly takes off, asking, “What if there were no
consequences?” One of the drunks answers, “We could do whatever we
wanted.” And Phil says, “Exactly.” (PLAN). He races through the town,
picking up a police tail, drives on the railroad tracks, barely missing a
train, and crashes into a giant groundhog cutout in a parking lot. The
sequence ends with the jail cell door closing on Phil … (35 min).

ACT ONE CLIMAX (A comic car chase, crash, SETPIECE.)

… and Phil wakes up in the morning in the B&B bed, to the same clock, the same song.

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Want more? Get full story structure breakdowns of ten movies in each of my workbooks.

STEALING HOLLYWOODThis new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding sixmore full story breakdowns.